


The Way I Know You Could

by Warp5Complex_Archivist



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: F/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-18
Updated: 2006-03-18
Packaged: 2018-08-16 06:39:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8091532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Warp5Complex_Archivist/pseuds/Warp5Complex_Archivist
Summary: Hoshi and Malcolm reflect. (04/27/2005)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Kylie Lee, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Warp 5 Complex](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Warp_5_Complex), the software of which ceased to be maintained and created a security hazard. To make future maintenance and archive growth easier, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but I may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Warp 5 Complex collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Warp5Complex).

  
Author's notes: My first R/S fic. The song I use is called "You Don't See Me", from Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack.  


* * *

Malcolm's POV:

This is the place where I sit  
This is the part where I love you too much  
This is as hard as it gets  
Cause I'm getting tired of pretending I'm tough

I'm here if you want me  
I'm yours, you can hold me  
I'm empty and aching  
And tumbling and breaking

I think that it has finally happened to me. It's something I don't think I quite believe yet. Even now, I want to believe it, want to embrace it, but at the same time, the fear of losing this feeling is almost unbearable.

I think that I am in love.

Strange really, but I never saw myself as the kind to fall prey to love. It was something that I had always disdained, always thought petty and meant for others. I didn't understand the mindless giggling of others, the drama and the complication that seemed permanently attached to the words 'I love you'. I did not despise love; I just never really thought it to be a part of my life.

I'd be lying if I said all that changed when she came into my life. In truth, it was more of the exact opposite. I disliked her at first. She was a scared little girl, terrified of the exciting new challenges that I myself thrived upon. She needed protection, needed someone to hold her hand through it all. It was something I had despised in my lifetime.

So what changed? Surprisingly, it wasn't my views. Hell, I am still as stubborn and stiff as I was the day I met her, but something about her changed in my eyes. Somewhere in the midst of the dangerous first contacts and the battle for survival, I found a different person. The weak little girl I didn't even want to get to know became a woman whom I could not stop thinking about. A woman who offered me something I had never considered possible.

True friendship.

And maybe...God, let it be...

True love.

I don't remember ever feeling this happy before. I feel almost...almost...

It sounds really absurd, but I feel as if I were a child again, feel as if somehow, being in love has given me back a little of that lost innocence. Ridiculous, right? I can't deny it though. Suddenly, the world doesn't seem so damn impossible anymore. The wars, the hostile species, the politics...none of it seems important. In fact, they're almost trivial. I don't pretend to understand any of these feelings, but I know that they're there. And more than anything else, I know that I have to tell her.

Smiling, I stand up from my station, ignoring the curious stares from the other bridge crew. Captain Archer looks at me with a question in his eyes, but protocol is cast aside as I walk past him, giving him a curt nod as an explanation. He doesn't try to stop me, and for that, I am thankful.

With that smile still on my face, I walk towards the mess hall, where I somehow know she is. I am almost bursting with excitement for this. I never thought Malcolm Reed, cold, proper, serious Malcolm Reed, would be reduced to being...giddy? Is that the word?

Yes, that's it. I never thought I'd sink to this giddy state. For some reason, my heart seems to be fighting to break from my body. Clutching my chest almost impulsively, I quicken my pace.

I walk into the mess hall, my smile ridiculously bright.

I see her, sitting with Commander Tucker in the corner, her face glowing as she laughed at something he said. She doesn't see me yet as I make my way over to her.

He bends his head closer to hers, whispering something to her, and she laughs even more, staring straight into his eyes. Her expression turns serious for a moment, and they simply look at each other, a multitude of feelings exchanging between them in a single glance.

Suddenly, my body becomes stiff, my smile somehow frozen onto my face.

Slowly, excruciatingly, I feel the gut wrenching pain hit me hard, knocking out my breath. The greeting dies from my lips.

Standing there in that crowded room, only a few feet away from her, I have never felt more alone.

As I turn to walk away, Trip calls out after me.

"Hey Malcolm! Come and join us!"

I turn slowly, catching Hoshi's eye as I look towards the empty chair at their table. She looks surprised to see that I had been standing there. Her surprise is quickly masked, and she looks at me expectantly, her dark eyes a vast sea of emotions.

I did not even say goodbye before walking away.

I don't let tears consume me, but I don't think my eyes have ever been that brilliant. Clenching my fists, I say a farewell to a piece of my soul.

Goodbye, Hoshi.

Cause you don't see me  
And you don't need me  
And you don't love me  
The way I wish you would  
The way I know you could

Hoshi's POV:

I dream a world where you understand  
That I dream a million sleepless nights  
Well I dream a fire when you're touching my hand  
But it twists into smoke when I turn on the lights

I'm speechless and faded  
It's too complicated  
Is this how the book ends,  
Nothing but good friends?

I wake up again, another one of those sleepless nights. It's dark in my room, so much darker than the deepest black. It seems to settle on my shoulders, a suffocating presence that taunts me, weighing me down.

I really thought I was in love with him.

I still think I am.

I hate this.

I have these dreams sometimes. Dreams that he is holding me in his arms, whispering in my ear, drowning me in soft kisses. But the cold reality is that it is all a lie. Everything I think and feel is a lie.

I don't understand it. He never speaks to me anymore, not the way we used to talk. I remember when I could just lie down on the mats in the gym after a training session, utterly exhausted, and pour out my heart to him. We used to listen to each other's heartbeats, each other's breaths, and revel in those simple things.

I haven't trained with him for weeks.

I have never seen him so cold, so brusque with his emotions. Even in the beginning, when we were just Lieutenant to Ensign and not friend to friend, he was never this unforgiving.

I wish he could see me. I wish so much that maybe one day, he'd just walk over to my console and take me into his arms, like in my dreams. It seems so silly, so childish to think of such daydreams, but honestly, I think dreams are the only thing left for me. The only thing that keeps me going.

I don't pretend to love it out here. I hated it at first, hated the fear that the very thought of this place brought to me. I felt weak, ashamed, and tired of being weak and ashamed. I hated seeing the disappointed looks on the other officers' faces.

Malcolm changed that.

He made me want to be stronger, made me want to try harder, to be more in control. He made me want to be...more.

He still does.

But I know now that no matter what I do, it won't be enough. Trip tries to cheer me up, pushing me to Malcolm, but it doesn't work. In Malcolm's eyes, in the eyes of the crew, I will always be the child that needs protection, the girl who's afraid to take a chance. They won't ever see the changed person.

He won't ever see the woman I want to be. The woman I think I am. The woman I want him to love.

But it doesn't happen.

I turn off the light again, lying back down in my covers, alone and cold.

Angry sobs shake my body. No one hears my cries but the darkness of my room, and the madness in my mind.

Malcolm...

No, Hoshi. No more crying in the dark. No more whispering his name. Let that part of you die away now.

Silent tears stream down my face as I say a farewell to a piece of my heart.

Goodbye, Malcolm.

Cause you don't see me  
And you don't need me  
And you don't love me  
The way I wish you would  
The way I wish you could


End file.
